Lots of other forums have one, figured might as well do one here.
Base/bonus
Year of experience/seniority
Anything you want to share about fund performance or whatever.
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EDIT:
Will update periodically with a summary
200 + 200/next year start
80 + 50/1 year
120 + 180/1 year
250 + 100/1 year, 1/6th stub
125 + 125/2 year
150 + 1500/2 year
125 + 2250/3 year
200 + 250/5 year
150 + 350/5 year
150 + 400/5 year
150 + 100/?
200 + 500/?
| +20 | Future of L/S | 5 | 1d |
| +17 | Latest blow up / wind down | 25 | 1d |
| +12 | Looking for Fund to Partner With - LMM Activist | 3 | 3d |
| +10 | SM L/S Compensation? | 2 | 2h |
| +10 | Nuvei is paying $7.40 a share in cash for Payoneer, US$2.75B equity. How do you read a premium that is still below the debut valuation? | 2 | 1d |
| +9 | MMHF Central Execution Trajectory/Advice | 1 | 9h |
| +9 | Moving from credit to equity? | 3 | 3d |
| +6 | How to prep for credit HF? | 4 | 5h |
| +3 | James Fishback | 1 | 32m |
| +3 | Chefs at Pod Shops | 2 | 2d |
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Expect to see some ridiculous numbers here
Lots of huge bonuses this year
True but I bet none of those guys are on wso and likely wouldn’t post about it
and just so prospects are clear - a “couple” is the operative word here
Yep...
9 figure????
base/bonus 200K/250K (450 all in)
5 years, including this year
fund did insanely well
generally was pissed, expected much higher comp .. i think normal this year for a similar person would be 400-700K
know two friends that got $1M+ this year with similar experience
Is this why you've been angryposting in this forum so much recently?
i prefer to call it truthposting, but i suppose yes
what kind of place do you work at?
hf
As a person who decides bonuses, your experience can definitely cap your bonus and set a range, but it's more about your personal contributions. So either there was a perception that the stuff you worked on was not directly linked to the pnl or your boss is just unfair.
As a rule of thumb I think the buckets are: 300k, 300-500, 500-750, 750-1mm, 1mm, 3mm, 10mm+. Getting over 1mm basically means formulaic contributions and running strategies that you developed on your own and not firm IP.
So it's worth asking why u were in the bucket u were vs the other guys.
Makes sense - this is good advice / feedback. How would you define the other buckets?
300: junior analyst couple years at fund with upside. No upside or bad attitude for team and you're out the door.
300-500: either senior quant without direct pnl ties or like 3-5 year experience analyst in normal years and normal contribution. Most are in this bucket.
500-750: Need direct pnl ties. 5y+ average analyst or 3 years in a great year and significant contributions
750-1mm: 5y+ experience significant contributions good year but not direct risk.
1mm: Jr PM with risk in decent year and formulaic payout or experienced analyst in big year
3mm: average tenured PM without scale
10mm+: senior PM with scale and capable of putting up 50mm+ net
That's basically the hierarchy and how to think about it. Note this is TOTAL COMP, not bonus.
What are some typical structures for formulaic payouts?
What is your current position?
80/50 (was promised 80/25) - first year, came from a non-finance background so was pretty excited.
125/125
2nd year analyst
Fund did well
How old are you? 27?
Following
Deleted.
Why'd you short the market in September?
Jeez how tf did your team lose 5/6ths of pnl in 4Q? Don't mean it as a knock, just flabbergasted your PM could do that. Sorry to hear that dude, feel for ya
Ya how?
I am guessing here but quite a few funds got badly hit by factor rotation in Nov, especially if they ran equity stats arb.
It’s not related to P+L from any of the dates anyone has suggested. We had a ridiculous run at beginning of the year, received larger capital, and had a moderately poor finish.
September 9 affect u?1
I'm actually surprised that there aren't more posts like this one. Second to last week in October there was a shift in leadership and there was a big risk-on rotation. The market hit the gas pedal on this in November (what a day 11/9 was, but for obvious reasons). Have had a similar year on the long-only side, we were killing it through September and now we are much more tight with our bench.
Typical poll bias. People who received generous bonuses have no reservations about showing off. Those who did badly are crying too hard to post about it.
5 yrs
150/350
Fund did well
What are you going to do with the money? How old are you? How much money do you have currently total?
chill the fuck out
Do you have 5 years experience in HF or does that include IB, PE? Thanks
5 years post college. 3 years HF experience, worked 2 years before that
Unemployed 5 years experience
invested own $, made about $1.5mm in gains (good year in the market and growth stonks)
Puzzled at the monkey shits - this is such a sick situation if it's true lol.
Let me give a hint. This is the hedge fund forum.
What’s typical comp for someone who goes IB -> SM HF instead of PE first?
Depending on fund size, similar to first year PE associate comp. If you're at a MM you can scale even faster than that but with more risk obviously.
Thanks for the response. Would ~300-350k be realistic at some of the larger SMs (Lone Pine/Coatue/Tiger)? Also, I've heard hours are almost as long as IB but more stressful because there isn't really downtime. Would you agree on that?
125 / >2250
Don’t want to give too much away, but I’ve been at my firm for >3 years now and we had a bit of a breakout year. Not expecting to get close to that number again on any consistent basis.
Is this a typo? 3 years experience at $2m+ total comp?
I guess If your at one of those unicorn funds like Abdiel which are up 100%+, it’s entirely possible
I have a few years of experience in other areas of finance
Do u work in biotech?
Perceptive advisors?
.
You made a 2million+ bonus?
150K/400K. 5yrs total experience, 3yrs at current fund
I hope next year will be good. My offer had base of 200, and expected bonus range starting from 100% but who knows if that will happen
400k for a hf principal? How does that work?
In a niche sector and I have a niche domain expertise
150 base with 1500 bonus (2nd year in the fund)
150 base with 850 bonus last year (1st year in the fund)
5 years non investing experience before moving to the HF
Holy shit!
I need to quit ib
Well yeah lol unless you’re an MD ur always better off at a HF. Although there’s much worse job security. I made the jump from IB and I never want to think about IB again. I’m gonna be emailing my former bosses for bitch work slides.
5 years of total work exp before? What type of fund (MM or SM)? Thanks.
SM. Consulting work experience with advanced degree (MD, JD, PhD type)
If you don't mind sharing, how large is your fund roughly?
5B
Event driven equity or more so on the credit side?
What type of fund?
His name literally says "Hedge Fund - Event Driven"
Congrats! Given your non-investment background, how did you go about your search for a firm and/or the best team for you? I'd like to move from a top BB to systematic investing and get good relevant experience, so I want to ensure I'm covering all possible companies with my search.
just out of curiosity, how did the fund perform? also guessing the fund runs lean?
Craziest I have heard is a PM low 30s maybe upper 20s making 50mm this year.
Crypto fund?
Works at a multi manager fund
Which fund?
No way
Since we are on the subject of bonuses, what are the strings and clawback periods attached to your payouts? For my side,
Commodities trading:
CEO canceled bonuses due to covid and lack of perceived future oil demand
yeah, I'm not happy
I feel you, it’s one of the drawbacks of working at a producer. One friend should get a 500k bonus for his performance but expects 0.
120 / 180. First year analyst. Spent one year in banking prior.
Do you regret going directly to HF after 1 year? Similar boat (first year) and want to do HF, not sure about going to PE as a stepping stone. I also haven’t closed anything yet from a BB
Never considered going into PE. I wanted to focus on the actual research vs the process/deal work and operations never interested me. No regrets so far. I have a ton of autonomy, never get chased for anything, and I'm constantly learning.
L/S equity?
Yeah I'm at a Tiger Cub
200/500-600 depending on how rest of December shakes out. Analyst at MM.
Just based on your comment indicating final amount contingent on December performance, curious if you're coming to that 500-600 based on a formulaic % of sleeve or team PnL? If so, what would that range of payout % roughly look like?
The range is wide because my PM grew my positions significantly in November, to the point where my names are 25-30% of the team's book so there is a lot of volatility this month on a $ basis for myself compared to the first 11 months of the year. On a % basis it's 5% of PnL from names under my coverage.
What kind of strategy are you guys running? E.g L/S? Market neutral?
Yes both. Like most of the big MM you hear about on this board.
Good stuff, sounds like you had a great year.
Hey, sorry to bother but I'm new here!
What does MM mean?
Kind regards :)
MM in hedge fund context is a multi-manager fund (i.e Millennium, Citadel, Balyasny, etc).
In contrast, SM is a single-manager fund (i.e Tiger cubs, DEShaw, TwoSigma, etc).
Are these numbers mostly MM or SM?
Are most of these people with these big bonuses create code strategies for their funds? End goal is to work at HF but I have no coding experience.
I’m not sure if CPAs usually get hedge fund jobs these days. Maybe non investor positions are possible but I haven’t seen any CPAs. But I am in a very particular niche type of a fund.
I don't have my CPA, but I moved from Big4 audit to HF doing fundamental equity L/S. happy to answer questions
Anyone on here working in London? I'm curious if the pay is different.
Bump
London pay is based a lot on age. I worked 4 years in a HF, getting promoted from back office to front office and backup PM. People who are older and made some significant mistakes made more money even though we generated a lot of profit for the firm. They cemented that you get paid based on your age and how the cio perceives you. Total Bs.
Is this just your experience or has it been corroborated by others?
If you don't mind me asking, how did pay scale? What strategy fund are we talking about here?
Tiger grandcub, started a couple months ago. Fund doing well
250 base + got 100 stub for about 1/6th of the year
Hoping this scales up with the full year in 2021...
Did you do the typical 2 years in IB, 2 years in PE?
did 2 years IB, went to PE and left quickly. didnt finish program
Are you responsible for pitching your own ideas and is your performance tied to your own p&l? Or do you work under a senior analyst / pm?
Mix of both my own ideas and my PM's ideas, weighted to my PM's ideas which makes sense to me given I've worked there for 1 yr and this is my first public markets job. I don't work under another analyst. Don't know how tied performance is to P&L given my short tenure thus far
How do bonuses typically work if the fund makes no money? It's my first year in the industry, and bonuses were not even mentioned (though I've been working remotely). Are they always given at year end?
You get fired
At MM yes, probably, but at a SM you don’t get fired if fund has bad year (although under-performers get fired every year regardless of performance of fund).
Total comp ~450k
Fund did not do well
5yr exp out of school but only 2 on the buyside
What strategy/asset class if you don't mind me asking?
Special sits
Can I work at your fund? 450k after a bad year sounds pretty good.
But you’re Jim Simons
Still decent can I ask what you did before entering the buyside? Thanks
$250K+$450K/6 years. bad year for the team but good year for me.
What type of shop? Tiger cub?
.
80k base / 160k bonus
1st full year
small-ish SM fund, contributed PnL
congrats on a good year. first year at the fund or in industry? can I ask what'd you do prior?
thanks. first full year in the industry. a few months of IB prior, wasn't for me
1st year analyst at $10bn+ HF
2 years prior experience
950k all in
Buddy of mine has a similar profile and did $2.5mm as a second year analyst.
The best funds pay really well.
Any idea what you’d expect as a first year analyst in an average year? And by two years experience, do you mean two years at a HF?
Mm or Sm? What’s your background?
2.5 mm as second year wow!!! I hope my second year comes anywhere close to that.
how are you a principal in HF hoping your "second year" comes close to that...
What did you do before the HF?
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